Gawker and Dov Charney

Lately, or for forever, I guess, Gawker and its tribe of commenters has had a sort of obsession with Founder and CEO of American Apparel Dov Charney—most recently seen in them covering the shit out of AA’s exciting dress code ‘scandal.’ Gawker etc. mostly blames the hipster retailer for having a “looksist” dress/ grooming/ hiring/ firing policy, for not manufacturing ‘plus-sized’ clothing, and for Charney acting perverted. See the following comment from Mulatta that was so… telling, that Gawker made it into Comment of the Day:

I was in AA recently feeling guilty and buying a hoodie, when a girl whose style would be universally acknowledged as ghetto-fabulous came in and asked if they were hiring. The two girls behind the counter (who were very AA-modelesque, all bowling shoes and slouches and knee socks and limp hair), in unison, gave this girl a long once-over and then one of them said, “We’re always hiring, but we don’t have applications.” There was another long pause as we all tried to figure out how to escape this moment with our dignity. Then Ms. GF said, “OK, so how do I get one?” and the AA clone said “Um, we do more like casting calls? Try Craigslist.” And Ms. GF said, “You apply to AA by searching Craiglist?” And the girl said, “I guess.” And then Ms. GF left and I handed over my debit card.

This experience made me wonder if supporting GAP sweatshops might actually be the lesser of two evils.

Really? Seeing a couple dumbass hipsters insinuate that some “ghetto fabulous” chick couldn’t be part of the club calls into question if supporting sweatshop labor is a better alternative? Uh.

Yeah, Charney seems like a bit of an asshole, and is certainly… weird, jacking off in front of reporters and all. But Gawker and Co. are berating the shit out of him for attempting to control the way his business operates. He’s the owner. He wants his employees to look a certain way? He doesn’t want his brand represented by “uglies?” He aggressively seeks to maintain the standards that he created and by which his employees agreed to when they accepted their positions at his company? OK—it might be mean, I guess, but it’s his company.

Gawker posted ‘horror stories’ from ex-/employees that have dealt AA’s shitty policies. Thing is, a bunch of the people who offered Gawker their views are still working at AA. Have any of these shit-on employees ever realized that working at AA actually doesn’t mean that they’re enslaved at some kind of isolated fascist retail plantation… that they could, maybe, if they hate it so much, break free of their chains of bondage and… look for another job? Maybe at Urban Outfitters?

The recent “scandal” that Gawker’s been promoting reeks of butthurt attitudes and relatively empty ideals from seemingly insecure people that either feel rejected or are fashionably into jumping on the chance to make a spectacle of hipster culture whenever possible, rather than genuine concern for the rights of the poor, terribly mistreated, noble employees of American Apparel (and those that didn’t cut it). With pageview counts for recent AA coverage over 50,000 on a consistent basis (in comparison to pageview counts of, say, their oil spill reporting) it seems that Gawker’s really just milking Dov and their trusty army of anti-AA/ anti-hipster commenters for the hits.

Which is cool, I’m into hits too.